The present invention relates to a device for automatically and selectively coupling a pipe with any one of a plurality of other pipes.
In many industrial sectors, for example chemical engineering, the preparation of lubricants or the like, and in wine stores or other liquid depots, mixtures of different liquids coming from several reservoirs have to be made in a single vessel.
To obtain these mixtures it is necessary to make a number of successive connections between the pipe leading to the final vessel and the pipes connected to the various reservoirs containing the liquids to be mixed.
These connections or couplings of pipes have been for a long time made manually, which is time-consuming and fastidious.
A more rational and convenient system is known in which the ends of the pipes leading from the reservoirs containing the liquids to be mixed are aligned in parallel relation on a support and connected to a manifold leading to the final vessel through an equal number of valves. It is then sufficient to open in succession the valves corresponding to the various reservoirs.
Although this system is relatively practical and rapid it nonetheless has important drawbacks. In particular, some parts of the manifold and its nozzles for connection to the various valves constitute "dead ends" or sectors which are isolated and are more or less large, depending on the positions of the closed valves, in which a certain volume of more or less mixed liquid stagnates, which requires a draining and cleaning of these parts and represents a loss of a corresponding volume of liquid.